Roasted Chicken

Have you kids missed me?! It’s been a bit hasn’t it?! This Christmas season just has me running around so chaotically! I have wanted to bake/cook something and post about it everyday, but finding the time to do everything it takes to have a good blog has just been null. At least everything it takes to do MY food blog ;) You know I like to ramble and tell stories, I can’t just put up a picture and recipe!

Any-who! Who is jazzed about Christmas?! I totally am, mostly because I leave for Hawaii in less that week! Yes!

But, I digress – right now we are talking birds/chicken/poultry – whatever you wanna call it! A few days ago I made this delicious treat. I had been to Costco that morning and saw two whole chickens for a reasonable price. I heart Costco, seriously. Plus they sell Tillamook Cheese

It’s a Oregon thing … but I do recommend trying it – FANTASTIC!

Ok, so got the chickens at Costco and was super pumped to cook the bird. I spent a good 30 minutes searching for a simple but classic roasted chicken recipe and when I found it, I knew it was the one! And I am so sorry to disappoint – but I lost the recipe, uggggh! I KNOW! I’m a failure! But, it was pretty basic for whole roasted chickens.

From memory – here is what I think I did … (I didn’t take pictures of the process b/c that would take way too long with washing my hands in between touching the chicken and picking up the camera, whoa bacteria!)

Gutted the thing. So gross. The innards were not in a nice little baggy, I had to do it myself. But it wasnt as bad as boning a whole chicken. I have yet to accomplish that – you’re waaay ahead of me Julie! (Julie & Julia, fantastic movie!) After removing the lovelies, rinse chicken and then pat dry with paper towels.

Preheat oven to 375. Peel two carrots, cut in half length wise, and then chop in half. Sprinkle some onion powder, salt, and pepper inside cavity. Place carrots in cavity with 3 Tbsp. butter.

Then, the recipe called for herbs and then butter on the chicken, but I didn’t think that was the right order, so I flipped it. Oh, and the recipe called for celery, not carrots. But all I had were carrots, totally acceptable. :) So rub chicken with either a half or full stick of butter, whichever you prefer. Make sure butter is completely room temperature, it will spread better. Rub that oily goodness into the breast, thighs, wings, everywhere! We want flavor people – get into it! Then sprinkle with salt, pepper, and onion powder. There not magic quantity, you just want a nice even coat. You could absolutely add garlic, or other herbs, but I wanted something simple.

Place in roasting pan, or like me – on top of a wire rack in a shallow pan, and bake for 20 minutes/lb. If you used enough butter, you can baste the chicken ever now and then with the runoff. Makes for a nice crusty skin!

The chicken is done when a thermometer inserted into its thigh (don’t touch any bones) reads 165 degrees F. When it reaches that temp, take it out of the oven and let it sit. This helps with the juices and finishes the internal cooking.

This picture reminds me: you need to close up both the large cavity and neck cavity. I used kabob sticks broken in half. Just “sew” up the chicken with the loose skin to keep cavity a nice warm pocket!